The author's ABSTRACT Shcherbakova E V Ways of perfection of educational service

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RUSSIAN

SHCHERBAKOVA ELENA VIKTOROVNA

FACULTY: Mechanical

SPECIALITY: Quality, standardization, certification

THE THEME OF MASTER'S WORK: Ways of perfection of educational service

THE HEAD: Poklonskij F.E.

E-mail: missgracel@rambler.ru

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The author's ABSTRACT

The ground of actuality: One of paramount tasks of any organization in modern market relations is an achievement of the maximal satisfaction of consumers, because the consumer corrects the market.The organization which quickly reacts on the inquiries of consumers with the minimal expenses for maintenance of required quality, has more chances to win the struggle with the competitors. For high educational institutions (high schools) as the organizations giving educational services, it is also necessary to put before itself such purpose.
Requirements of society to the quality of education raise, technologies of training are radically updated, organizational and economic conditions of activity of high schools quickly vary, competitive struggle in the market of educational and scientific services becomes aggravated, the position of the state concerning to the high school constantly varies.
Successful work of any university is impossible without constant perfection of its activity as for improvement of the quality of educational, scientific, information and other services. Ways and methods of perfection should be adequate to requirements of consumers which employers are students themselves and also a society and the state that would receive not simply diploma expert, but competitive expert. The graduate of high school should have a necessary set of qualities, professional knowledge, skills to correspond to the requirements showed to him in the market of vacancies.
That is why the choice of a theme of master’s work is not casual because nowadays the improvement of quality of educational service is the most actual problem in the field of education.
The basic sources which contain the information and materials on actual problems of management of high schools, about programs and projects in the field of university management are periodicals. These are the magazines "University management: practice and analysis" and "Quality. Innovations. Education”.

The aim of the work is the extending of general theoretical representations concerning the concept, essence of educational service, its perfection by creation of system of a quality management.

For this purpose the following tasks are put:

to specify, concretize the concept of “educational service”;
to analyze the idea of creation of systems of a quality management in high schools of Ukraine and Russia;
proceeding from the analysis of systems of a quality management in high schools to offer the concretized model of its construction;
to determine the list of advantages from the creation of the QMS in high school;
to reveal the basic problems of creation of the QMS in high schools in Ukraine.

The concept and the essence of educational service

Educational process is a process of mastering is the certain system of knowledge, skills and abilities by the person. The result of this mastering expressed in this or that level of development of intelligence, theoretical and practical preparation of the person.
According to the Law of Ukraine “About high education” educational activity is the activity connected with granting of services for purchase of high education, with distribution of the appropriate document. The Quality of educational activity is the set of characteristics of the system of high education and its compound which defines its ability to satisfy the established and stipulated needs of separate persons and a society. However in the law is not defined the term of the educational service.
According to standard ISO 9000:2000 “The Basic terms and definitions” any production is the result of process. Service is a result at least of one action which has been necessarily carried out at interaction of the supplier and the consumer and as a rule it is non-material. Granting of service can include, for example, the following: granting of non-material production (for example, information in sense of transfer of knowledge). In V.A.Kachalova`s work the following definition of educational service is quoted: " it is a volume of the educational and scientific information as the sum of knowledge of general educational and special character and the practical skills transmitted to the person under the certain program ".
Educational service is a complex of purposefully created offered opportunities for purchase of knowledge and skills with the purpose of satisfaction of educational needs. According to the purpose and the content educational services are subdivided into:

Professional, focused on the needs of a labour market and connected with the reproduction of a the manpower;
Social, focused on the needs of development of the organizations and social communities;

Specificity of educational services is that at the same time their consumer is the concrete person and a society as a whole. In another words, in high quality of educational services are interested both separate persons and the state which should act as the guarantor of the national interests. Besides, the employer is interested in the quality of education.
So, according to the Bolo process three sides should be the consumers of educational services: the person, the employer and the society of the country. The society trusts the Ministry of Education and sciences of Ukraine to be both manufacturers of educational services and the departmental controller of their quality. The basic making qualities of educational services are the quality of result (knowledge, skills and abilities of graduates) and quality of processes of achievement of result (their conformity to the state educational standards).
So the high school is a manufacturer of educational service which is the product which universities present in international, national and the regional markets. Therefore the following approach is transferred to high schools: only that university is competitive in the market of educational services which aspires to give the most effective and economic, most high quality education. Accordingly, the modern university should have a control system of quality. [1]

Principles of improvement of educational service
Achievement of positive results in improvement of granting of educational service becomes possible due to introduction and support of system of a quality management which is intended for constant improvement of its parameters.
According to the international standards of series ISO 9000, a basis of work of high educational institutions can become eight major principles or conditions of a quality management:
Orientation on the consumer.
A management.
Attraction of workers.
The approach from the point of view of processes.
The system approach to a quality management.
Constant improvement of educational process.
The approach to acceptance of decisions on the basis of the facts.
Mutually advantageous relations with suppliers (for example, secondary educational institutions: schools, gymnasiums, lyceum)

According to the first principle there is a precise dependence of system of high education on consumers (the persons or the organizations that receive educational services and young experts). Consumers have the current and perspective needs for experts and put forward the general list of requirements for today and on the nearest future. So the main task is to imply full satisfaction of requirements of consumers.
According to the second condition which is called the Management presence of rigid requirements to business and moral qualities of rectors and directors of high educational institutions is provided in high schools. The last should be guided by principles which establish unity of the purposes of high school, their quality, and the main thing to fulfill directions of action with distribution to stages, etc.
The head of an educational institution, irrespective of a level of accreditation, is called to work on the creation and maintenance of such internal "microclimate", due to which probably full attraction of all categories of workers to performance of the main task of high school which is the qualitative preparation of experts.
Attraction of workers is the third condition of management. It provides such approach that each worker of ah educational institution which prepares the highly skilled experts, would become equally valuable to educational sphere. His qualification, skill, talent, experience represent property of a higher educational institution. It is necessary to fulfill, and in some cases to improve precise system of encouragement of workers for diligent performance of duties, for the shown initiative, for an overtime etc.
The fourth condition keeps the heads of the branch to consider everything that occurs in an educational institution from the point of view of the process.
The desirable result is reached more effectively in that case when management of activity and the appropriate resources is carried out as process with all following requirements. It concerns to the various sides: to high educational institutions, to the bodies of the state or local management, to consumers that are the enterprises and the organizations. The process should be determined as a set of the interconnected or cooperating kinds of activity of an educational institution.
One of key principles of quality becomes the system approach to the management (the fifth principle). Rectors and directors of high schools precisely are obliged to understand and represent interrelation of processes which assist increase of efficiency and productivity of work of educational establishment in the performance of the given tasks. It is necessary to include to the sphere of quality all sides of activity of a high educational institution including those connected with development of material base, computer maintenance, the decision of problems of financing and other spheres of functioning of high school.
It is possible to approve that different working sections are integrally incorporated into the organizations of system of management with system of a quality management. They can and should form united system of management with the general element and with one purpose of reception of a qualitative product at the end of the work that is the comprehensively advanced, highly skilled expert.
Requirement to the interconnected or cooperating kinds of activity should be accompanied by statement of problems on revealing opportunities of improvement it is the constant process including the analysis of state affairs on the part of rectors and directors of higher educational institutions, correcting and also application of measures of anticipation on the part of a management.
To the seventh principle of system of management carries the approach to acceptance of decisions on the basis of the facts. Effective decisions are based on the analysis of the data and the appropriate trustworthy information. It is necessary to understand the real data in the manner of documents. It is possible to spend next operations:

monitoring is ability to look after background, application or another;
acknowledgement of checks is granting of the objective information, proofs, desirably from independent or parallel sources;
adjusting actions are precautionary actions which can be undertaken for elimination of potential discrepancy (non-execution of requirements).

From the point of view trailing executions in sphere of quality of a higher educational institution it becomes the important element of system.
And last principle is mutually advantageous attitudes with suppliers. Higher educational institution and educational institutions which give full secondary education (schools, grammar schools, technical schools and colleges) in the real life always interdependence. In many cases they are partners during preparation of experts for various spheres of manufacture and services. Mutually beneficial relations expand opportunities of addition of value of each of the sides between them.

Analysis QMS in high schools of RUSSIA and UKRAINE

Purposeful work on creation and introduction of control systems by quality on the basis of requirements of quality standards ISO 9000:2000 is conducted now in many high schools of Ukraine and Russia. In the majority there are three basic models of quality management of preparation the experts based on the following methods and approaches are used:

an estimated method of quality management of activity of high school (SWOT - the analysis);
the concept based on principles of Total quality management (TQM);
the approach based on requirements of international quality standards ISO 9000:2000.

The model of management which based on an estimated method, assumes regular realization of a self-estimation for revealing the strong and weak sides of activity of high school, and also positive and negative factors of its development. On this basis measures for the sanction of problem situations and improvements of activity of high school are developed and offered. The model of management based on principles TQM (Total Quality Management) (General quality management), also uses a method of estimations, however it is based on deeper analysis of activity of high school, from the point of view of market economy, as "manufacturer" of educational production and rendering of educational services. Concept TQM assumes presence at high school precisely and clearly formulated mission, the strategic purposes which are produced as a result of comprehensive investigations of needs of an environment in the basic products of activity of high school. General quality management assumes the process approach to activity of high school, uses a number specific, enough difficult, but rather effective methods and tools of quality management.
The model of management which based on requirements of the international quality standards of series ISO 9000:2000, assumes an establishment of the interested sides, revealing of their requirements to quality of production, creation of system of continuous perfection of activity. The given model is based on basic principles of a quality management, including, the process approach. As against model TQM, in the given model the basic toolkit of management becomes the documentary control system focused on quality.
The experience work of the Russian and Ukrainian high schools in a direction of introduction and use of modern methods of management, with the purpose of improvement of quality in education shows that the problem of effective introduction of principles of a quality management demands perfection of organizational and functional structure of high school, development of the plan of its strategic development on short-term and intermediate term prospects, development of the innovational infrastructure, the thought over personnel selection in sphere of a science and education, education of a network of the strategic partners providing a feedback « HIGH SCHOOL as the consumer ».
That is why the analysis of an operational experience of high schools of Ukraine and Russia allows allocating the following tendencies:

It is an active distribution to high schools of works on creation, introduction and certification of control systems by quality according to requirements and recommendations for a quality management and principles of the General quality management;
It is a realization by high schools of a self-estimation with the purpose of revealing the basic areas of improvement in educational, scientific, administrative, financial and economic and economic activities;
It is a creation in a number of the high schools of systems of strategic partnership providing feedback of high schools with consumers of their graduates;
It is a participation of high schools in the international projects in the field of quality;
It is a creation of special structural divisions on quality management of preparation of experts (a post of pro-rectors on quality).
It is a work on training and improvement of professional skill of administration and teachers of high schools is begun.

Advantages from creation QMS in high school

In conditions of amplification of rivalry among subjects of the higher school there a lot of necessary competitive advantages is created by the system of a quality management certificated according to requirements ISO 9001:2000. Doubtless advantages of such control system that it orders educational activity, i.e. standardizes mutual relation between its separate participants and divisions, namely:

It orders activity inside an educational institution by means of the description of interaction between separate executors and divisions;
It is means of the resolution of conflicts between divisions, all participants of educational process: the standard allows "to agree" i.e. to accept a consensus arranging opponents;
It gives a side benefit before competitors: conformity to the international standards deduces any activity on qualitatively new level;
It allows carrying out constant monitoring of processes by means of various mechanisms: self-estimations, process of constant improvement, internal audit that allows to reveal discrepancies and operatively to eliminate them;
It allows involving all teaching structure in work on quality that allows using completely potential of high school. Maximal use of a mental potential of the personnel and achievement involved in work on quality of all collective of high school becomes possible in case of maintenance of conformity of the purposes of an educational institution and its separate employees; formations of an atmosphere of free discussion of problems and creations of the conditions favorable for successful work; development of system of motivation of employees to performance of works without mistakes from the first and establishments of programs of continuous improvement of professional skill.
It is essential to improve and optimize activity of high school and to raise productivity and an overall performance;
To strengthen accent on the purpose of the activity and achievement of expectations of consumers;
To reach and stably to support high quality of the services for satisfaction of needs and requirements of consumers;
To open new opportunities or will keep already won segments of the market of services in sphere of higher education;
To be recognized on the part of customers through procedure of certification;
To take participation in tenders, including international, concerning.

It is possible to concretize advantages from creation QMS in high school for various groups of consumers:

1. 1. It is for entrants and students:

quality of educational process raises as a result of ordering, gathering, distribution, the analysis and storage of the necessary information (curricula, progress and satisfaction of students etc.);
The number of the cancelled employment due to a precise control system is reduced and brought to nothing;
The level of preparation of experts - graduates of high school raises is increase; the demand for them grows in a market of work;
There are questions, offers and complaints of students due to the organized mechanisms of interaction, no without attention .
2. It is for employers:

A guarantee that the experts were prepared with the account of requirements constantly varied to them;
Confidence that quality of preparation of experts is supported by high school constantly on a high level.
3. It is for a management and employees:

The control is improved above all fields of activity of the organization due to a full transparency of activity;
The expenses are reduced due to optimization of the basic and auxiliary processes;
The volume of paper work decreases;
The transparency of performance of accepted decisions;
The internal streams of the information are improved;
The investment appeal of high school is raise;
Each employee precisely realizes the role and the contribution to activity of high school.
4. It is for the state:

There is a guarantee of that rendered educational services meet all established requirements;
The introduction QMS in high schools promotes integration of higher education in a world education system;
The state receives a guarantee in target and most an effective utilization of the budgetary funds allocated to high school;
Procedures of licensing, certification and accreditation are facilitated

Problems of creation QMS in the Ukrainian high schools

The situation with maintenance the quality of preparation the experts in Ukraine cannot be named safe because of influence of some factors. It is possible to allocate the list of the general factors which have essentially worsened a level of granting of services of higher education:

A cancellation of the state distribution of graduates of high schools;
Deficiency the experts, capable to work in conditions of market economy;
Actable demand for experts of graduates of high schools;
Reduction of interest to reception of technical knowledge;
Reduction of financing from the state budget of general educational and scientific activity;.
Work of high schools without QMS.

The urgency a problem of creation and introduction of systems of a quality management in educational establishments has found reflection in the international projects. Program Tempos - Tasis the European union at support of the Ministry of Education and a science of Ukraine, in the period with 2004 on 2005 maintained and finance project SCM “Structural and Complimentary Measures” T008B03 «the Program of development of structural and additional measures on maintenance of quality surveillance of training».
Under the initiative of high schools of Ukraine and at support of the Ministry of Education and a science of Ukraine, the British Council (British Council/REAP), International Fund " revival " conferences and seminars on problems of perfection of quality of education and modern methods of management of high schools on which, including, the results received at performance of scientific researches were discussed also were carried out.
However, proceeding from experience of development and introduction of the control systems of quality of education in higher educational institutions, it is possible to allocate a number of problems which complicate creation and an effective utilization of such systems:

Absence of unequivocally certain legal base for the precise and consecutive organization of works on creation of control systems by quality of education in high school;
Absence of necessary methodical grants and recommendations for introduction of principles of a quality management in educational establishments;
Insufficiently strong and stable communications with the enterprises of the industry and as result - realization of educational activity in a separation from needs of today;
Absence of the qualified managers of " an average link » managements of high school;
Rejection the faculty of new principles of management;
Insufficient assistance to high schools in introduction of principles of a quality management on the part of controls;
Insufficient volumes of financial assets for effective realization of changes and perfection of the activity.

Conclusions

That is why the summarizing above told, it is possible to draw a conclusion, that now — time of occurrence of the market of educational services, internationalizations of the market of education, an aggravation of a competition (under the prices, programs, specialties), varying needs of a labor market, an exit on the market of foreign suppliers of services with the organized quality management, offers of new forms and technologies of the training, growing inquiries of consumers and necessities of granting of the warranty on educational production, the most effective and complex method of improvement of quality of granting of educational service will be creation of system of quality of the high school, series ISO appropriate to standards 9000. Introduction of system of a quality management according to requirements ISO 9001:2000 will create a basis for order and conflicting educational process, will be the tool for the professional sanction and the prevention of various disputed situations. To promote satisfaction of requirements of internal and external consumers: trainees, employers, a management, employees, the state. That is those high schools which want to develop the enterprise and innovational activity and aspire to win in the market of educational services and high technology production strong positions to be guided by consumers, should apply modern methods and standards of quality management.

© DonNTU, Shcherbakova E. V.